Meanings and Values in the Purchase of a Brand New Car: Study with Brazilian Customers

Consuming, whether for satisfying basic or superfluous needs, is an activity present in any human society. One of the main principles of marketing is that consumers do not only buy goods or services but also the benefits they can derive from them. As products have intrinsic utility or hedonic value, consumers can, through their buying habits (among other influences), develop similarly utilitarian and hedonic levels of purchase values or even conspicuous values from the shopping experience. Therefore, the paper’s main objective is to evaluate the importance of utilitarian, hedonic, and conspicuous values present in a brand new car purchase. Data were collected by a survey with individuals who purchased a brand new car as of 2010 in the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. By the results, we observed the main influence of utilitarian and hedonic values on satisfaction for all groups and the influence of conspicuous values only for lower middle class.